


Petrovoloi

by Brachylagus_fandom



Category: H.I.V.E. Series - Mark Walden
Genre: Bullying, Canon-Typical Violence, Dissociation, Laura-centric, glasshouse au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28119687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brachylagus_fandom/pseuds/Brachylagus_fandom
Summary: Laura Brand is pretty sure she's not in military custody anymore. Mostly because of the pit fight.Or: Laura gets friends, answers, and kidnapped, albeit not in that order.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: H.I.V.E. Gift Exchange 2020





	Petrovoloi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DivergentMage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivergentMage/gifts).



> Happy holidays, gremlin-slyth!Written for your request "dark fic"; after all, what's darker than a secret base/prison hidden in Antarctica?

On one blustery Thursday in the middle of fall, Laura Brand comes home from school to two military police officers sitting at her kitchen table. Her father is pacing, and her mother is drumming her fingers along the kitchen countertop, but the visitors are calm - they know she will not be able to put up much, if any, of a struggle, this teenager with too few friends and too much knowledge of the nuclear warning system - and so is she. She's been picturing this day for months, ever since she typed out the phone number of that first so-called "friend" and got confirmation of something she'd always known; however careful she could be - and she was careful - she knew that there had to be someone out there capable of uncovering her tracks. Laura Brand goes quietly with the MPs to an SUV with tinted windows - conspicuous in its inconspicuousness - and into military custody.

At least, she thought she had, but Laura's pretty sure she's not in military custody anymore. Partially because one of the MPs had pressed a foul-smelling rag to her face as soon as the car had turned off her parent's street, partially because she'd been woken and then dragged down endless concrete hallways by a boy no older than sixteen, but mostly because of the pit fight.

And there is no other term Laura can think of to describe the two teenagers grappling in the center of the room as a tall man with a scar down his face - the first adult Laura'd seen since she'd woken up here - leans against the wall, arms crossed. Still more teenagers line the walls, watching the fight with a mix of caution and fear. Laura wonders how many of them are in this… facility, whatever it was. Dozens at least, based on the rooms she'd been marched past on her. Maybe hundreds. Maybe more.

In the center of the room, one of the teens - one with a buzz cut and a tattoo stretching down their arm - grabs the other's long dark hair. Laura winces; as if on cue, the nape of her neck starts to ache, even though she hasn't worn her hair in a ponytail there (worn it long at all, really; after the last time, she'd cut it short enough that Chloe's third favorite insult was that she looked like a boy and kept it at that length religiously) in years. In the center of the room, the teenager whose hair had been grabbed reaches a hand up to grasp their assailant's wrist and twists; quicker than Laura could keep track of, the two teenagers are on the floor, the one with long hair pinning the other's wrists to the ground with one hand.

"Finish him, Fanchu," the man says. The long-haired teenager - Fanchu, Laura guessed - glares at him.

"I will not kill," Fanchu says, voice steady and surprisingly deep.

"I said," the man says as he stands up and starts walking towards the pair,  _ "finish him." _

"I will not kill," Fanchu repeats. The man sighs and reaches for the back of his waistband, but before he can draw what Laura assumes is a pistol, the boy who'd marched Laura down here clears his throat.

_ "What?" _ the man yells.

"New recruit, sir." The boy shoves her into the center of the room. The man pauses and turns towards them.

"Very well," he says. "Fanchu, out of the ring and out of my sight." Fanchu steps back into the crowd as the man circles around Laura. "Don't look like much, newbie. Let's see how well you do." He drags a girl about Laura's height with blond hair into the center of the room and then retreats to his spot on the wall.

For a moment, everything is still. The girl stands back, green eyes dissecting every inch of Laura, and Laura, unwilling to make the first move, stays still as well. Laura doesn't want to fight her. (She's not entirely sure if she  _ can _ fight her; if she's anywhere near as skilled as those two boys…)

"Well? Get on with it!" the man yells, and the girl leaps into action.

The first few seconds of the fight go almost well; Laura's gotten into her fair share of schoolyard spats, things that ended with pulled pigtails and forced apologies, and she's decent enough at dodging blows. Then the girl gets her hand in Laura's hair - gets a grip stronger than Laura had thought possible given its current length - and  _ pulls _ , and Laura's world starts to fuzz out around the edges.

Laura's reaction is instinctive, immediate, something Laura herself isn't entirely aware of until she's pinned to the ground, cold seeping through her jumper - except she isn't wearing a jumper, and the floor beneath her isn't the cobblestone or dirt surrounding her school, it's concrete, and the person pinning her there isn't Chloe or Braeden or any of her other classmates but rather the blond-haired girl she was fighting. Her face is bloody. The spot where she tugged Laura's hair is still tingling.

"You with us, newbie?" the girl she was fighting asks. Laura nods, and the girl stands up, allowing her to sit up and look around. Except for the two of them and Fanchu, the boy she'd seen fight earlier, the room is empty; Laura wonders how long they were like this, the other girl holding her to the floor. How long she was… away. "What's your name?"

"Uh, Laura," Laura says. "Laura Brand. What're yours?"

"My name is Wing Fanchu," Fanchu says as he offers her a hand and helps her to her feet. She mumbles thanks under her breath.

"And they call me Wraith." The girl she'd fought shoots her a wicked grin - slightly offset by the blood still trickling from her nose - then glances down at Laura's right hand; its knuckles are bloody, and now that she's paying attention to it, it starts to ache. "Lucky shot today. Wanna learn how to throw a real punch?"

***

"Where are we?" Laura asks as they walk down a hallway; like all the others she's seen since she woke up, it is made of dingy concrete and poorly lit.

"This place is called the Glasshouse," Wing says. "It is meant to be a training ground for the villains and assassins of tomorrow, the people who will help enact Overlord's agenda."

"Child soldiers, basically," Wraith says as they emerge into an open space the size of Laura's local football stadium. It's ringed by catwalks, and two figures - a scarred woman and a white-haired boy standing half a step behind her. "That's Director Furan." Wraith nods towards the catwalk. "She runs this place, picks who to kidnap and everything."

"And the boy behind her?" Laura asks.

"Otto," Wing says. "Overlord's heir."

"Furan's pet." Wraith makes a face. "So, what did you do?"

"What?" Laura

"Furan picks people with skills she thinks will be useful," Wraith says.

"Generally a propensity of violence and lack of remorse," Wing adds. "And willingness to follow orders."

"Wing's a total ninja," Wraith says, "and I was a jewel thief."

"Wait," Laura says, "you're  _ that _ Wraith?"

"The one and only," Wraith says. "So, what did you do?"

"Nothing," Laura says. Wing and Wraith look at her. "I hacked the nuclear warning system so I could use it for surveillance-"

"-That is not nothing," Wing interjects.

"You'd be surprised how little of a thing it was," Laura says, "honestly, it was harder to get LabQuest on a school laptop - but I didn't do any of the things you mentioned. And I'm pretty sure this place isn't looking for people who can use C++." Wraith snorts.

"Still, Furan must have thought your skills would be useful," Wing says, "or she would not have recruited you."

"Useful for what?" For a moment' wing.

"You'll -  _ we'll _ \- figure it out eventually, I guess," Wraith says. "So," she adds after a moment, "basic punch. First step, keep your thumb out of your fist or you're gonna dislocate it again, maybe even break it-"

(Later -  _ much _ later - Laura Brand would look back to that day, to that conversation, to Otto watching them from the catwalks, and she would know, deep in her gut, exactly why she was brought to the Glasshouse. It would not be a comforting realization.)


End file.
